Does green public procurement encourage firm's environmental certification practice? The mediation role of top management support

The environmental certification acts as a sustainable practice for firms to improve their competitive advantage and its motivation has been widely discussed. However, existing researches ignore the important market driving force of green public procurement (GPP) as a policy tool. To fill this gap, this study, focusing on manufacturing firms in China and three typical environmental certifications, explores the relationship between GPP market pressure and firm's environmental certification practice based on institutional theory. Additionally, from a strategic perspective of green human resource management, this study unveils the influence mechanism of top management support in this relationship by using upper echelons theory. According to the empirical results, we find that GPP market pressure is positively associated with environmental certification practice, and top management support partially mediates this relationship. This study provides new insights into the explanation of firm's environmental certification practice, and provides practical implications for firm managers and government administrator.